This is the Winter 2018 course discussion blog for and by UCLA students enrolled in LGBTQ Studies 183: Queer Arts in LA.
This course includes a creative component. When this course was first offered during the Fall 2012 quarter, the students researched queer artists who have a significant connection to Los Angeles. Then created a collaborative website.

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Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Otra Corozon 2

This conference made me more aware of the queer/Chicanx dynamic because I come from a queer, Black background. I was very much welcomed in the space. I run BlaQue, the black and queer organization on campus and upon my arrival and Otra Corazon, I felt the same way I felt in arriving to the BlaQue meetings. There was a familial aura in the way folx laughed with one another, cried with one another and yelled at one another. They all were there to honor Tomas Ybarra-Frausto and I felt honored to be allowed in that space.

One of my main takeaways from the conference was this idea of "community-based art-making and art-based community-making." This idea stuck with me because I am a firm believer in the fact that all forms of community-making is art. Therefore, the fact that Tomas spread his art through discussion about his art really stuck with me. During the first panel, I did not really get where queerness was going to come into the conference. However, when the talk about Rasquachismo came up, I knew that it had something to do with queerness although I did not totally understand the concept. However, the more I listened, especially to Robb Hernandez, I realized that it is a form of decolonizing, but it goes deeper than just that. It is this idea to delve completely away from the norm. The norm may not be something that was colonized, but Rasquachismo would still say to delve away from it.